Chapter 11
The next morning, I drove to the mountains of North Georgia to serve papers on a preacher. As my favorite lawyer boss, Lawless, and I had suspected, the pulpit was the best place to find a preacher on a Sunday morning.
While it might’ve been fun to interrupt the service, I instead waited outside the doors of the church.
To while away the time, I fretted over my kitten.
By the time Brother John Fitzhugh finally wrapped up his sermon—complete with three altar calls—and shook the hands of each of his flock, not only was my stomach growling but I’d also imagined at least twenty scenarios in which the kitten could’ve hurt herself.
I practically threw the papers at him and then hightailed it back to Marietta, where I burst through the door like a SWAT team member with a key.
Imagine my surprise when I found her in the bathroom, where I’d left her, curled up in the cat bed I’d placed on the vanity.
She blinked at the light I’d turned on and then gave a ferocious yawn.
“Smug, aren’t you?” I asked as I picked her up.
She stretched a little and purred as we took a tour of the apartment and looked outside to see if there were any paw prints in the flour that dusted my patio floor.
Not a one.
“I suppose you’re going to need a name,” I said.
She blinked again and began to make tiny biscuits on the arm that cradled her.
“Patches. No, that’s not it. Annie . . . because you’re an orphan? No. How about Callie?”
She yawned again.
“You have a point. That’s a bit on the nose.”
The cat with no name wanted down, which had me humming “A Horse with No Name.” I even sang a verse about living in an apartment with a cat with no name. She toddled over to her food bowl, and I broke off mid-verse.
What are you doing, Stella? You absolutely cannot give this cat a name, much less sing songs about her.
I couldn’t get attached to this cat. Nor to anyone—at least, not before I’d thoroughly vetted them. I wasn’t going to go through betrayal again. I’d had enough of that, thank you very much. Between my parents and then Ken, I didn’t have it in me to trust again.
With a sigh of resignation, I petted the kitten once more and headed out the door to check around the neighborhood whether anyone had seen a mother cat or kittens.
Maybe someone was looking for a kitten, and I could be an agent for the universal cat-distribution system.
I surveyed neighbors in the other two buildings of the complex first. No luck. Once back at my own unit, I paused in front of Malone’s door.
Nope.
That would be a bad decision.
Upstairs, I got into a lengthy discussion with Mrs. Q, one that didn’t have an end in sight.
With absolutely no shame, I interrupted to ask her if she knew that Hulu had episodes of Wheel of Fortune that she could watch anytime she wanted.
In less than an hour, Mrs. Q was signed up for Hulu, had a basic understanding of how to use streaming services on her smart TV, and was plopped down on her sofa shouting phrases at Pat Sajak.
I showed myself to the door.
No one else on the upper floor answered my knock, other than in the apartment directly above mine. When I heard someone taking down the chain, I felt a smidge of giddiness. Now I could find out who’d been listening to “All Too Well” on repeat.
A harried woman not much older than me opened the door.
“Hi, I’m Stella Stark from just below you and—”
Her brow furrowed. “Is Addie being too loud with her music again?”
“Well—”
Before I could finish my sentence, she turned and yelled, “Addie!”
“Oh, really. It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I’m mainly worried because someone’s been playing the ten-minute version of ‘All Too Well’ on repeat and that suggests a breakup of epic proportions.”
The woman sighed. “She had a crush on some boy who’s now going out with her nemesis—at least, that’s what she tells me. I’m April, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said just as she yelled, “Addison Amelia Trimble, get your happy self in here now or that phone will be mine.”
Addie Trimble appeared in mere seconds, but the scowl on her face indicated she wasn’t happy about it. “What?”
“This is our downstairs neighbor, Miss Stella, and she isn’t keen on reliving the Eras Tour over and over and over again, which, as you will remember, is the reason why Mr. Turtleberry moved out of the apartment below us and into another unit altogether.”
“Mom!”
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. Turn your music down. And apologize to Miss Stella.”
She heaved the aggrieved sigh of teenagers everywhere before saying, “Sorry.”
April cleared her throat.
The teen stood up straighter and adjusted her voice to something closer to contrite. “I apologize for playing my music so loudly.”
Underneath the indignation lay mortification. I remembered that feeling only too well. Something about hormones meant life itself was embarrassing, much less mothers who made you apologize to strangers.
Maybe that empathy prodded me to say something to lighten the mood.
“Too bad you don’t live above Mr. Malone. He hates Taylor Swift.”
Her jaw dropped. “How? Why? But he’s such a snack.”
More like a whole damn meal, kid.
“Addison,” April warned. “He’s also old enough to be your father.”
“Ew, gross, Mom. Why do you always have to go there?” She backed away from us disgusting adults, but then I remembered my real reason for being there.
“Are y’all missing a kitten, or have you seen any kittens or a mother cat around here?”
“No,” April said at the same time Addie said, “Phillip’s mom—they live over in building three—took a mother cat and kittens to a rescue society day before yesterday.”
“Do you know which one?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I only heard him talking about it on the bus.”
So my kitten really was an orphan.
“Well, thank you,” I said. “And nice to meet you both.”
April waited for Addie to disappear down the hall, then stepped out into the breezeway with me. “Does the guy downstairs really hate Taylor Swift?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
She frowned. “I mean, I could use some variety up here, but that’s a shame. He’s always seemed so nice.”
He did seem . . . nice.
My conscience pricked. I shouldn’t have said anything. Technically, I didn’t have a confidentiality agreement with Trista, but I didn’t need to get in the habit of hearsay. Why had I said anything?
Because you remember being an exposed nerve like that child and wanted her to redirect her emotions somewhere else, pretty much anywhere else.
I shrugged, not able to say something about how looks could be deceiving. Instead, I told the truth. “I shouldn’t have said anything. And really, the music is no problem. I only hear it in the bathroom for some reason. She seems like a good kid.”
April’s shoulders lowered with relief. “Thank you for saying that. I’ve been so busy trying to make sure my youngest is getting the support he needs, I sometimes forget Addie isn’t as self-sufficient as she would like for me to believe.”
“What’s happening with your youngest?”
“Oh, don’t get me started. A school board member has canceled the after-school tutoring program that’s been helping him catch up.”
“The one for this district?”
“Yeah.” She was about to say something else when a young boy, about ten, appeared at the door.
“Mom? I cleaned my room. Can I have the Wi-Fi password now?”
“You can’t have it, but I’ll come type it in for you.” April gave me a weak smile and a little wave before returning to her apartment.
I had the oddest urge to offer something to her. She was so bedraggled, kinda like my mother had been back when we were a family. Single parenting had become so hard for my mom then that she’d passed me off to Nana.
But I had no idea what to do for April to make her life easier. Surely, her kids were too old to need babysitting. She didn’t appear to need a petty personal assistant. Maybe the best thing I could do would be to leave her alone?
Once again downstairs, I paused outside Malone’s door. Technically, I had no reason to ask him about cats and kittens if Addie’s info was correct, but . . .
I knocked anyway.
After much fumbling and more time than was strictly necessary for opening a door, Malone appeared wearing those damned aviators. Did he wear them to bed?
“Change your mind about pizza?” he asked.
“No.” My stomach growled. I’d had a granola bar after serving papers but had forgotten to eat anything more substantial. “Maybe.”
He stepped back and gestured for me to enter his apartment.
“But that’s not why I came by.”
“Oh?”
I started to ask my standard cat questions, but he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. Inside. So instead I asked, “Your future so bright you gotta wear shades?”
He frowned, and I regretted my nosiness. Maybe there was a reason why he wore dark glasses. An eye injury, maybe. Why was it so important that I see his eyes anyway?
Because that adage about how eyes are a window to the soul held a great deal of truth. Being able to look into someone’s eyes was part of how I gauged their truthfulness. Did they make eye contact? Maintain it? Look at the floor instead? Look from right to left?
“Forgive me,” I said. “It’s none of my business.”
“Well,” he said with a sigh. “If I want you to share . . . pizza with me, then I suppose I should take off my glasses.”
“Only if you want to,” I said, pulling out my phone. “What do you like? Plain cheese? Everything but the kitchen sink? A mighty meaty?”
That last one came out in a husky voice, and I willed my ears not to turn red. I was here to ask questions about a kitten. And apparently to get pizza. Not to make double entendres.
When I dared to look up, he was trying hard not to laugh.
“My safe word is ‘anchovies.’” I waited a beat. “Anchovies.”
He laughed out loud and took off his sunglasses, but he looked away from me. “Stark, you are a breath of fresh air. I’ll give you my pizza order if you promise not to freak out.”
“Freak out about what? You’re obviously not a pirate. Otherwise, you’d have a patch.”
He slowly turned to face me, and his eyes—one light blue and the other dark brown—met mine.
“Amazing.” I sucked in a breath, mesmerized and, truth be told, not quite sure where to look.
Not that long ago, I’d been flippant about signs from the universe, and here was a big one.
The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I told them to lie right back down because this was all a coincidence. Nothing more.
He arched an eyebrow—the one over his blue eye, to be exact.
“Seriously,” I said. “Why would you hide your eyes? They’re beautiful.”
His shoulders sagged with relief. “Order that pizza, and maybe I’ll tell you a story.”
“Mighty meaty?” I asked, this time with quadruple entendre.
He grinned. “Why not?”
Oh, I could think of a few reasons not to get pizza with Malone. One, he was married. Two, he was married. Three, I really liked him, but he was married.
That said, if I knew more about him, then I might be more successful in future attempts to earn the rest of that $3,000.
I tapped on my phone. “While I’m ordering, let me ask the question I actually came to ask you.”
“Which is?”
“Have you seen any kittens or a mother cat around the neighborhood?”
“No,” he said with a frown. “Should I have?”
“Just wondering because I found a kitten on my patio.”
“Cool!”
“I’m glad you feel that way. Would you like a kitten?”
He hesitated. “I’m going to steal one of your phrases and say ‘yes, but no.’ I don’t think I’m going to be here long enough to get a pet.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he planned to run off with his side chick, but I didn’t want to tip my hand. Earlier, Mrs. Q had mentioned bringing her signature casserole to him, so I wasn’t out of the petty game yet.
Malone, however, was proving tricky. I needed this fact-finding mission so I could formulate plans J, K, and L.
So what if I’d felt a pang of disappointment when he said he wasn’t sticking around? No one ever did, and it would be best for me to get Malone out of this apartment complex before my hormones made me do something stupid.
Havisham had literally upped the ante with her bet; I didn’t have the spare fifty dollars for a romp with Malone. Bless her for adding another incentive for doing the right thing.
Then again, if I were the one to end up playing the ten-minute version of “All Too Well” back-to-back-to-back, then that might provide logical consequences for Addie.
And for me.
Nope. You’re not going to fall for it. This is strictly a fact-finding mission, Stella.